I thought it was funny how the Governor and his crew roll in heavy with their full frontal assault, but end up scattering like roaches after a couple flashbangs and smoke grenades. Rick and team should have setup more traps to take them out.

Spoiler for Hiden:

The look of horror, confusion and terror on the faces of Martinez and silent black guy after the Governor goes berserk. Would you still roll with someone like that? And where did the three go if not back to Woodbury? That must've been an awkward car ride.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Carl laying it out for Rick was a cool scene. He's become "little Shane".

Spoiler for Hiden:

Every time Andrea stopped trying to undo her bonds and keep the conversation going or just sat there and stared at Milton to check if he'd become a biter was precious seconds lost. I'm still more sad Merle is gone than her dying. I had enough of her stupidity for season 3. She'd had multiple opportunities to kill the Governor, but didn't. Like Dale, the person who tries to save everyone and make everything work, pays the ultimate price in the end.

the Gov not being dead. I don't want him as a recurring bad guy. Knowing this show, though, we'll see him again in season 7.

Overall, I liked this episode.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Carl was the best thing about it. That little dude's heading down the wrong path, but it didn't seem like there was a lot that could be done about it. Maybe it's even not so far off the right path for this world because his daddy smackdown was hard to argue with. Maybe bringing in a whole town of "the enemy" was enough, but I doubt it.

On that: How did they convince a whole town to move out of their cushy homes and come live in a prison?

I was proud of Milton and thought this was a good resolution for him and also the first decent plan the Gov has pulled all season. For a moment, though, I thought he was going to stab himself in the head instead of go at the Gov.

I was pleased to see Andrea go. I liked her line about the safety. I hated that she kept insisting that she didn't want anyone to die. When did she turn so hippy dippy naive? That sounded more like a justification of her stupid behavior when she started it last week.

The Gov freakout was good, except when he conveniently ran out of bullets and forgot about the huge rifle in his other hand. Whatever, he was having a meltdown, so I let it go.

Michone has become way more interesting as a real character instead of a cypher. However, she's starting to turn a little too soft too fast. She should still be a bit hard, I think.

It was the little character things that were good, which is when this show is at it's best. The moment with Daryl and Carol. The one with Rick and Hershel. Rick and Carl. Even the stuff with who stood up to the Gov and who was intimidated.

It wasn't the best of the season (I still give that to the standalone visit to the town with Rick, Carl and Michone), but while it wasn't as satisfying as I wanted in certain aspects, it still was a good episode.

Overall I agree even if I thought the set piece with "the chair" was as suspenseful as anything this season. I felt like the finale had some great scenes/set pieces, but some lapses in logic/common sense made it tough to watch at times. I guess for better or worse, that goes down as Mazzara's finale script/showrunner effort for TWD.

I don't know if it's fair (director and other things impact episodes), but judging the Gimple scripts vs. the Mazzara scripts this year, I think I prefer Gimple's take/storytelling.

Most disappointing to me?

Spoiler for Hiden:

The Governor's fate. I mean, lack of. Come on. The whole season and all the buzz was "Who's going to kill the governor," so to just bizarrely let him "off the hook" and go cruising with his two befuddled homies... wtf?

I mean, if the Gov is gonna mass shoot his own people like that, where does he have left to go as a character? He can't really sink any further. My heart sank without about 3 minutes left when I realized, "Gov ain't a gonna get it."

Most confusing to me?

Spoiler for Hiden:

Why bring everyone over to shredded up The Prison, whose towers are in grenade-launched tatters, and whose bowels are STILL full of walkers? How's that going to work with apparently 5 times as many people? It just doesn't seem to make much sense. I was looking forward to Season 4 having a new setting.

I mean, I like the idea of Rick's journey from "I'm in charge!" to "I'm a man of the people and lets come together," but it seems reasonable people would either regroup in Woodberry or just form a caravan and move on.

I look back on Season 3 as very entertaining, certainly more consistently so than Season 2, but way more erratic - especially the last few episodes - than Darabont's Season 1. I think I did like Season 3 enough to maybe get it on DVD (skipped Season 2).

Now that they're done killing off cast members left and right, I hope some underused and/or new characters get something to DO in Season 4. Anxious to see how Gimple does as showrunner.

I don't get that either. Team Rick has been headshotting walkers left and right out to 100 yards without any problem. But how about a trying to hit (using fully automatic weapons no less) a tightly bunched group of attackers running away scared? They hit squat. What is this? An old A-Team episode? Unless they didn't want to kill any of them, just scare them off.

One thing that stood out to me which seems to be overlooked. the group the Gov brings to the assault is mostly made up of reserves. remember the bit a few episodes back where the recruited new soldiers from the group. he had lost quite a number of his hardened soldiers to Merle's ambush and they also lost a few during the earlier assaults on the prison and Woodbury. I have the feeling that the group he brought was mostly isolated behind their walls and had not seen direct conflict, and then against walkers only. quite a different enemy when they are shambling outside your walls like a shooting gallery. once the high of busting the front gates faded into a duller search and destroy mission, they were vulnerable.

Actually, now that I think about it, the show has turned me into Carl. "Heck with Andrew and her world peace hijinks! Kill The Governor! Kill The Governor!"

I'm worried they'll spin off the Governor into his own show... "The Walking Dead: On the Road." Followed by, "Walking Dead: Los Angeles," "Walking Dead: NY" and maybe "Walking Dead: Beijing" for the China audience ratings...

Or perhaps a remake of Benson (but with Walkers) with The Governor as the governor. Rick Grimes could play the butler... or better yet, Dead Milton...The Governor: "Benson!!!! You gotta help me with this speech for next Thursday!"Dead Milton: "....."

Anyway, still love the show and it will be sad not to be rushing home from laundry night trying to get in front of the TV Sunday night (I've been unable to get into Mad Men).

It was the little character things that were good, which is when this show is at it's best. The moment with Daryl and Carol. The one with Rick and Hershel. Rick and Carl. Even the stuff with who stood up to the Gov and who was intimidated.

The best little character detail was

Spoiler for Hiden:

Rick picking up his old badge and staring at it with conflicting emotions after learning that his son just gunned somebody down in cold blood. So much for law enforcement!

It seems like the writers always have a dark, ends-justify-the-means character to push and challenge Rick. Merle, Shane, Merle again, and now Carl. I hope the writers have enough finesse to not turn Carl into little Shane. It's subtle, but he should be his own guy, not a mini Shane. I think Carl's personality hardening does reflect Shane's influence on him though, which I'm betting we will see surface in heated conversations with his dad next season. Regarding Carl's actions in the episode,

Spoiler for Hiden:

they did make the scene ambiguous enough that I really couldn't fault Carl too much. The boy took way too long to drop his weapon, and was very sketchy the entire time...perhaps due to being scared, but it cost him his life. I don't want to see an evil Carl, but a balance between Shane and Rick would be cool.

Andrea spoilers from the finale:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I'm purely speculating, but I think that Andrea was written off the show (departing from the comic storyline) because of the performance of the actress. She just wasn't very good in that role. Maybe she was miscast, or the writers couldn't figure out how to write for her, or maybe she's not a great actor. Either way, it wasn't working. You don't have to be a professional critic to see that something just wasn't clicking with her and the show, despite lots of scenes and opportunities. I'm not sure why.

Her scene with Milton was really tense, and mostly done well. The question by Milton that let her (and the writers) explain her confusing actions over the course of the season was contrived. Her answers were consistent with the Andrea they created for the show: naive and dumb. It's a shame, and a missed opportunity to create a badass female lead character. I really think they dropped the ball with her character. She should have gone out in a blaze of glory. The whole point of her internal struggle during season 1 was finding the strength and will to live on in the new world. For her to go out this season the same way she was trying to in season 1, with a self-inflicted gunshot, just seemed lame to me. They could have done better with her story.

fwiw, I've never heard anyone involved with the show say that particular person is a "bad" performer. If anything, they seemed to adore that person. Could the character have been better written, with more logic behind that character's actions, so the audience didn't want to scream at some of that character's reasoning? Yes, imho!

I do think if they keep pruning the original cast so much, it'll eventually be like watching some long-running sitcom where the whole cast turned over, and eventually the audience has nothing invested in what's left. I realize "that's the Walking Dead," but I could see myself eventually losing interest if it's just watching a bunch of generic characters I haven't invested previous seasons watching.

btw, if you miss Emma Bell (Amy), her character on TNT's Dallas is gradually getting more to do. She's Bobby's second-wife's daughter, abducted as a child and raised by her then ex-some guy or other... (don't ask )

btw, if you miss Emma Bell (Amy), her character on TNT's Dallas is gradually getting more to do. She's Bobby's second-wife's daughter, abducted as a child and raised by her then ex-some guy or other... (don't ask )

I had to look up who Amy/Emma Bell was again. I don't even remember her. The first season of the show seemed like an eternity ago.

It seems like the writers always have a dark, ends-justify-the-means character to push and challenge Rick. Merle, Shane, Merle again, and now Carl. I hope the writers have enough finesse to not turn Carl into little Shane. It's subtle, but he should be his own guy, not a mini Shane. I think Carl's personality hardening does reflect Shane's influence on him though, which I'm betting we will see surface in heated conversations with his dad next season. Regarding Carl's actions in the episode,

Spoiler for Hiden:

they did make the scene ambiguous enough that I really couldn't fault Carl too much. The boy took way too long to drop his weapon, and was very sketchy the entire time...perhaps due to being scared, but it cost him his life. I don't want to see an evil Carl, but a balance between Shane and Rick would be cool.

Andrea spoilers from the finale:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I'm purely speculating, but I think that Andrea was written off the show (departing from the comic storyline) because of the performance of the actress. She just wasn't very good in that role. Maybe she was miscast, or the writers couldn't figure out how to write for her, or maybe she's not a great actor. Either way, it wasn't working. You don't have to be a professional critic to see that something just wasn't clicking with her and the show, despite lots of scenes and opportunities. I'm not sure why.

Her scene with Milton was really tense, and mostly done well. The question by Milton that let her (and the writers) explain her confusing actions over the course of the season was contrived. Her answers were consistent with the Andrea they created for the show: naive and dumb. It's a shame, and a missed opportunity to create a badass female lead character. I really think they dropped the ball with her character. She should have gone out in a blaze of glory. The whole point of her internal struggle during season 1 was finding the strength and will to live on in the new world. For her to go out this season the same way she was trying to in season 1, with a self-inflicted gunshot, just seemed lame to me. They could have done better with her story.

So many comments to make, I'm still reeling a bit from the finale. It made watching GoT premiere right after seem downright dull.

Spoiler for Hiden:

Regarding Carl, it's interesting that both you and I refer to him turning "evil" or "dark" - I think the show is trying to challenge what that even means in a world of zombies. Everything Carl said was true, and in some sense you could argue shooting that other kid was far more merciful than what his dad did to the backpack dude a few weeks ago. And of course the way the kid kept moving forward to hand the gun over really was (deliberately) questionable, just drop it if you are serious.

Spoiler for Hiden:

I agree on the lameness of Andrea's death, but I disagree about it being the actress' fault. With the material they gave her, I think she did as good as any actress possibly could. It was crap material, let's face it. Wishy-washy, whiny, stupid, one bad decision after another, it's like they wanted people to hate her. Even in this end sequence, as others pointed out, why did she wait so long and go so slow trying to get out of the chair? The tension it built was great drama but it was completely non-sensical given that Milton was alive for so long and she should know better than anyone the approx amount of time it takes to turn from her sister. It's not like going slow and quiet was going to make him die slower.

Acting aside, her character could easily have been turned around at any point by giving her her sharpshooting skills back and having her snipe a ton of zombies, take out the governor or doing anything really cool. Apparently all you need to get back to the in crowd is save someone's old family photos I almost wonder if they wanted to send the message that they were truly divergent from the comic, on top of the "no one is safe" kind of message they've been advertising, I dunno.

It feels like some of the plotting, inconsistencies and contrivances are getting close to out of hand. As mentioned earlier though, as much as some of the plot points drive my crazy, I think the show's strongest points are its small character moments. Still, I'm really getting a bit tired of seeing core characters get killed off. I know they want to make it "realistic" and gritty/harsh, but at some point (as BJ mentioned) you're gonna start losing the audience because they don't know if they should care/invest in any character. Can you imagine if they killed Daryl? I heard there were people writing death threats lol.

I think most good show writers will tailor their writing once they've had a chance to get a feel for the strengths of their actors, even if it changes their vision for the story or characters. Which seems to happen a lot when shows start hitting their stride in season 2 or later. For some reason, TWD writers never seemed to hit their stride with the actress and their vision for Andrea. I agree, what they wrote for her was really unbelievable and unlikable, especially when you add everything up.

Season 1: Andrea is suicidal and battles to find the will to live in the ZA world. Several characters try and bond with her and encourage her to live. Season 2: Andrea fills the role of moral advocate for the group, but they made her annoying and nagging. She bonds and sleeps with dark Shane. She's unable to see what Shane has become (or what he's becoming). She develops good marksmanship skills. She links up with Michonne at the very end. Season 3: Starts well as a survivor with Michonne, but she promptly dumps Michonne for the Gov. She sleeps with the gov, and is unable (or unwilling) to see who he really is, despite her savior (Michonne) laying out her suspicions. She chooses the Gov over her friend. Andrea learns about the dark side of the Gov but still stays with him. She could have ended everything, saved the people of Woodbury and herself by killing the Gov, but she can't.

I agree, all of that is on the writers, and resulted in a really unlikable character.

THR: The entire season was leading up to this big battle between Rick and the Governor, which we never really see and the Governor effectively walks away after murdering most of his army. Why take the story in that direction?

Kirkman: We've definitely got more story to tell with that guy. I always liked the idea of seeing him again and not having a clear resolution to that conflict. Rick and the group are still at the prison and the Governor is still out there. There's more ground to mine. Knowing the Governor isn't dead is going to weigh on these characters when we come back in season four and we'll have to see where things go.---------------------THR: On The Walking Dead, we know that anyone can go at any time. Why was it Andrea's time? What is the message you're sending in killing off this character?

Kirkman: Aside from reaffirming the unsafe nature of the show, it's a bleak show and the message we're trying to send is Andrea would go to any length to save those people and she ended up sacrificing her life for them. Speaking to the character of Andrea, it was showing how devoted she can be and how things, despite all of her best intentions, went awry. We've got a lot of work to do with the Governor (David Morrissey) next season. Having him be that diabolical and sinister will serve his character moving forward and that was a pretty important and defining moment for him that will pay off in the fourth season.

Even though I still love the show, I really feel Season 3 spent too much time abruptly trying to turn gun-toting Andrea into Ghandi, trying to save the generic citizens of Woodbury while jumping the Governor's bones. Did she even know anybody by name there other than Milton? C'mon. Keanu Reeves interacted with the bus passengers in Speed more than Andrea knew Woodbury's citizens.

Actually, maybe I won't get season 3 on DVD. I think I'd spend way much time second guessing and griping about story holes, character behavior logic gaps screwy plot points. We already do that here! 😀

Even though I still love the show, I really feel Season 3 spent too much time abruptly trying to turn gun-toting Andrea into Ghandi, trying to save the generic citizens of Woodbury while jumping the Governor's bones. Did she even know anybody by name there other than Milton? C'mon. Keanu Reeves interacted with the bus passengers in Speed more than Andrea knew Woodbury's citizens.

They should have let Andrea turn into a walker. Maybe then she'll still try to broker a peace between zombies and humans. We can rebuild civilization! Zombies and humans working, loving and living side by side!

EW: Yeah, I know you guys originally shot a much different version of this whole scene. Walk me through how it was originally shot.ROBERTS: Originally, the beating scene that started the episode wasnít there. Originally, I showed up and was led into the room where Andrea was and I took the tools out Ė the instruments of torture that were laid on the table ó and then he shot me in the stomach, completely unexpectedly. And then I was left to bleed out in the same idea basically ó youíre going to kill her now. There was a lot more of Milton trying to open the door and him trying to free her from the chains. And then there was a section where he was going to wrap the chain around the neck and try to choke her to death before he turned so she wouldnít have to deal with Walker Milton, or Biter Milton, as it were.

And then at the end of that, it was just Tyreese and someone else who found her. Rick and Daryl and Michonne werenít there. So it was essentially the same idea, except you saw me taking chunks out of Laurie Holden in that version. And then they called us back a few months later to reshoot it and made all those changes. So now youíre not sure if Iíve gotten her until after that door opens, and I think thatís probably why they did it.

EW: So they actually shot the scene of you as a zombie biting into her?ROBERTS: Yeah. Itís funny, in the articles and on Talking Dead last night, youíll notice stills of Milton where he has glasses on [Ed Note: See picture above!]. They are from the scenes that we shot and werenít aired. Because Milton gets his glasses knocked off and never has glasses in the interrogation scene in this finale. But Iíve seen a lot of pictures where Milton has blood on his mouth and glasses on that were from that first shooting.

Kind of interesting answer on one question about the showrunners...

Quote

EW: When you came back to do the reshoot, was that after Glen Mazzara had moved off the show?ROBERTS: Yes, it was after he and AMC had decided to part, but he was still theoretically in charge of the back half of the season. I didnít see him there. I donít know if we was in L.A. pulling those strings. Scott Gimple, who ended up taking the showrunner position, was there, so some of those changes may have come from him.

Reading that article makes me realise how hard it is getting to know new people's names in that show other than the gang who have been there since the start(or near enough),i am reading that and just saying to myself "who?","who?","who?" ...thankfully there were pictures

Overall i enjoyed season 3,but agree the last episode was a tad shit.....should of ended on last weeks episode with....

During the marathon, Smith will speak with the cast and crew, sharing behind-the-scenes footage from the highly anticipated fourth season. The first season of TWD will air twice on July 4, featuring marathons of both the original and special black-and-white editions. This will be followed by Season 2 on Friday, and Season 3 on both Saturday and Sunday. Each day of this four-day event begins at 1pm. (Side Note: The black-and-white editions only apply to Season 1 on July 4.)

Logged

Because I can,also because I don't care what you want.XBL: OriginalCeeKayWii U: CeeKay